Cups drawing results

This past week Benfica found out who their opponents will be in the League Cup and Portuguese Cup. In the Portuguese Cup, it'll be current Liga Sagres leader Leixoes, in a match that will take place on the 14th of December at Estadio do Mar. In the League Cup, also known as Carlsberg Cup, Benfica will be paired up with Olhanense, Belenenses and Guimaraes.

After defeating Desportivo das Aves and moving on to the round of 16, Benfica will now face harder competition in Leixoes. Benfica, who up until this point, had played all of their Portuguese Cup games at home will now have to travel to northern Portugal to face Leixoes at Estadio do Mar. It'll be the second time Benfica will play at Estadio do Mar this season, the first time took place back on the 5th round when Benfica let a win slip between their fingers in the 88th minute.

Here are the rest of the Portuguese Cup pairings:

(Torre Moncorvo / V. Setúbal) - Vitória de Guimarães (L)
Atlético de Valdevez (II) - (Santa Clara/Lusitano/Fiães/Freamunde/U. Madeira)
Estrela da Amadora (L) - Olivais e Moscavide (II)
Paços de Ferreira (L) - Vizela (LH)
Cinfães (III) - FC Porto (L)
Trofense (L) - Nacional (L)
Naval 1º Maio (L) - Portimonense (LH)

There's still a couple of pairings to be decided by preliminary games.

In the second edition of the Carlsberg Cup, the League decided to change the format of the competition and will now have a group stage in their 3rd round, the round where the Liga Sagres top teams enter the competition. The league has decided to split up the field into 3 groups of 4 teams each. Each team will face the other team in their group only once and the top two teams of these groups will then advance to the final stages of the competition, where the round robin format will apply.

Benfica drew, Guimaraes, Belenenses and Olhanense, a team from Portugal's 2nd flight division(liga Vitalis), and will be part of Group C.

Here are the fixtures:
@ V. Guimarães 1/7/09
Vs Olhanense 1/14/09
Vs Belenenses 1/18/09

The Carlsberg Cup is one of Benfica's objectives this year, and will be taking very seriously by the team and its technical staff.